SimplComp

What it does

A general-purpose compressor aimed at clean dynamics rather than colour. Controls are input, a Comp dial that lowers the threshold as it rises, ratio, output, attack, release and a Mix dial for parallel compression. Auto makeup gain compensates for the reduction, meters show input level and how far the signal sits over threshold, and presets cover vocals, bass, drums, guitars, piano, whole mix, master and parallel settings.

In the demo

Jade runs it on the drum bus and the lead vocal of a shoegaze metal project in Logic Pro, switching it in and out so the change is audible in context. She works through each control on the drums, then pushes the compression hard on a dry vocal before the reverb chain goes back on.

Worth knowing

It adds no saturation or analogue character, and auto makeup gain is not adjustable. Anyone chasing a particular hardware tone will want a modelled compressor instead.